Bronaugh School Board sets forum for Tuesday

Nevada Daily Mail

The Bronaugh R-7 School Board will hold a public forum at 6 p.m., Tuesday, in the Bronaugh High School gym or cafeteria, to gather input on a possible change in grading policy, concerning Alisha Jones seventh-though 12th-grade Bronaugh math classes.

The board voted during its regular monthly board meeting, April 8, to abandon the current weighted math-grading system, implemented by Bronaugh Principal James Frank. The system was put in place around mid-January.

The 6-1 vote was made with the intention of returning to the grading system the school had previously utilized, a point-by-point system.

Special meeting

The board voted 6-0 during a special meeting held Friday, to rescind the April 8, 6-1 vote. Board member Korey Yount was not present at the special meeting.

In early 2015, Frank and Bronaugh seventh-12th-grade math teacher, Alisha Jones, collaborated to make the change from the point-by-point system to the weighted system. Both Frank and Jones felt it would benefit the majority of math students. In addition, the system-change was "signed-off" on by R-7 Superintended Lyle Best.

However, during Friday's special meeting, it was suggested that the 6-1 vote on April 8, to repeal the weighted-system, was a possible violation of the Missouri Sunshine Law -- specifically, voting on an item that was not on an approved board agenda.

During the April 8 meeting, both Frank and Best were present for the open session. However, after the board voted to go into a closed session, Frank and Best left, not staying for the closed session. After emerging from the closed session and adjourning back into open session, the board then discussed and voted on the policy change. The item was not on the original agenda. Frank and Best were not present for that specific discussion and vote.

During Friday's special meeting, both Frank and Jones provided data for the board and public in attendance, showing that the weighted-system was, in their opinion, beneficial to the vast majority of Bronaugh math students.

The data provided by Frank, indicates that if the April 8 vote had not been rescinded during Friday's special meeting, 13 students who are currently passing, would wind up failing at the conclusion of the school year, while one student would go from failing to passing.

The data also shows, that a grand total of 40 students are benefiting from the current system (63.4 percent), while 19 students would be negatively impacted (30.1 percent). Four students would be neutrally impacted.

Check Tuesday's paper for a full recap of the April 8 regular board meeting, as well as the April 17 special meeting,